Pedrosa: "Mugello will be very emotional"

After his stunning win at Jerez and a charge from P13 to the podium in Le Mans, 2017 is going well for Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda Team) - so well he's now second in the Championship standings and only 17 points off Maverick Viñales (Movistar Yamaha MotoGP) at the top.

Looking ahead to Mugello, where Pedrosa has previously won, the 'Baby Samurai' says the base setup is good and the one day test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya helped gain good information about the new front tyre available at Mugello - but is more focused on friend and former teammate Nicky Hayden, who tragically passed away last week following a cycling accident.

Dani Pedrosa: "The Mugello weekend will be very emotional. It’s tough to lose a friend, especially one who became very close during three seasons as teammates and over the years afterwards. I remember how much Nicky pushed, how hard he tried, never giving up while chasing his dream to win the MotoGP title. I also remember when I was suffering with arm-pump in 2015 and I announced I was going to stop with racing for a while after the first GP. He immediately came to see me to understand what was going on and it was him who actually recommended the doctor I had the surgery with. He was such a nice person and I’m so sad and sorry especially for his family. We will think of him and feel him close in our hearts when we go on track in Mugello, as we did at the Montmelo test last week. In Catalunya we lapped on the revised layout and worked on the front Michelin tyre we’ll have to use from now on. We learn and we made some adjustments to the setup over the day of testing and in the end we could manage and get a better feeling. We confirmed that our base set up is good. We finished the test in a positive way."